Guides Are Shrewd Moves

Think Of These Clues-for-the-clueless Manuals As Grown-up Versions Of "Cliffs Notes."

October 3, 2000|By Joy Dickinson, DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Congratulations! You may already be a Dummy. Or an Idiot. More likely -- if you're anything like millions of American readers -- you're already both. If your bookshelves sport anything glaringly orange and blue (Idiot!) or yellow and black (Dummy!), consider yourself one of the fashionably clueless.

The Complete Idiot's Guides and Dummies books have become a verifiable social phenomenon: Combined, the series have sold more than 100 million books and feature more than 1,000 titles. Take that, Harry Potter.

One might consider the Dummies and Idiot's Guide books a sort of grown-up version of "Cliffs Notes," only with far-reaching topics. Coincidentally -- or perhaps not -- IDG Books, the publisher of "Cliffs Notes'' also publishes the Dummies series. And yes, there's The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature for adults whose fear of Hawthorne remains disabling.

So which came first, the Idiot's or the Dummies? That distinction belongs to the stoplight-yellow-and-black Dummies series, which kicked off in the early 1990s with a handful of computer-related titles.

The Dummies books have stayed heavily computer-oriented, with more than 500 titles (including revisions) in that arena and about 200 in the noncomputer, lifestyles area, says Kathy Welton, vice president and publisher for IDG Books.

More than 100 million Dummies books have sold in the last decade, Welton says, with between 50 and 75 new noncomputer titles each year. She didn't have figures on how many computer-related titles are published annually.

The Idiot's Guides jumped on the "clues for the clueless" bandwagon in 1993. "We saw what they [the Dummies] were doing, identifying a market niche and really seeing it take off, so we decided to get into that as well," says Marie Butler-Knight, vice president and publisher for Macmillan Lifestyles, under whose Alpha Books imprints the Idiot's Guides are published.

As with the Dummies books, the first Idiot's Guides were computer-related: The Complete Idiot's Guide to DOS and The Complete Idiot's Guide to PCs.

But the Idiot's Guides soon turned their emphasis to more lifestyles topics. Of about 300 current titles, only about 50 are computer related, Butler-Knight says from her office in Indianapolis.

"The concept works for any subject that people might feel intimidated by at first -- they see us as someone who's going to hold their hand as they're leaning into a subject."

More than 100 new titles in the Idiot's series will be published this year, Butler-Knight says. Since the series debuted, the books have sold about 3 million copies every year -- 7 million in the last 24 months alone.

LEARNING WITH LAUGHS

While some readers might take offense at being lumped in with the Idiots and Dummies, Butler-Knight says, "If you're offended, these probably aren't the books for you. No learning style works for everyone, and we're assuming a certain sense of humor. You'll see a lighthearted approach on nearly every topic with us."

That has occasionally caused some reader backlash, she says. "We had one reader who took exception to our approach with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beating the Blues, which was about depression.

"But, really, if you're already depressed, couldn't you use a little humor in your life? And the information is completely valid and well-researched; just because it's presented in a certain way doesn't mean it has any less credibility." She says another reader took exception to the point of view in The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Middle East Conflict.

Welton, publisher of the "Dummies" series, says those books also "have a sense of humor, but we haven't pushed some of the envelopes that the Idiot's Guides have.

"We've made a decision that we're just not going to do anything that might not be in good taste to some readers," she says from her Chicago office.

They might be less edgy, but the Dummies' continued emphasis on tech subjects has made them icons of the computer world.

Carey Stephenson, a 35-year-old free-lance computer consultant who lives in Garland, Texas, says the Dummies guides have saved him more than once.

"I've had times where I'm doing a project and the person on the other end is talking a completely different programming language.

"I can usually take a Dummies guide and get up to speed pretty quickly, at least enough to get started.''

The Idiot's series has had its greatest success in personal finance, health and fitness and relationships, Butler-Knight says. "We've had a great success with The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Kama Sutra, for instance," she says.

"And our Learning Spanish is a top-seller month after month. We've also done really well in spirituality, new age and religion titles, like The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catholicism.''

PACKED WITH INFORMATION

Ideas for new books come from readers, editors and writers. "We have a whole staff of editors working on this, tasked with keeping their finger on the pulse of popular culture," Butler-Knight says.